Childers/Landers 1
Brook Childers
Carlee Landers
Ms. Larsen
ENG 261
29 August 2015
Frankenstein Study Guide Chapters XIII and XIV
Romantic Elements
Gothic Elements
Chapter XIII Paragraph II – Spring invigorated the Chapter XIII Paragraph IV – A mysterious dark
creature's spirit. Romantics believed that
haired woman arrives at the cottagers home,
emotional healing could be found in nature.
bringing an air of mystery to the story.
Chapter XIII Paragraph V – When the stranger
revealed her identity, the cottagers were
overjoyed. This drastic change in emotions, from
gloom to joy, is a common Romantic element.
Chapter XIV Paragraph III – Safie is threatened
by her father, a powerful and tyrannical man, and
he also brings about the ruin of the DeLacey
family.
Chapter XIII Paragraph XI – The creature seeks
solitude in nature at night.
Chapter XIV – The cottagers background is filled
with pain, sorrow, and darkness until the arrival of
Safie.
Chapter XIII – The creature desires to learn the
language of the cottagers, demonstrating a desire
for self-betterment which is a common Romantic
element.
Chapter XIII and XIV – Old man DeLacy is blind,
which leads the reader to think of a life lived only
in darkness. This gives his lifestyle a Gothic tone.
Chapter XIV – Felix's high wrought emotions
brought about the DeLacey's downfall. Romantics
thrived on emotions.
Childers/Landers 2
Character Analysis
 The Cottagers – The creature stumbles across the DeLacey family’s cottage in the wilderness
after being rejected by the townspeople. The DeLacey family is comprised of a young man by
the name of Felix, a young woman named Agatha, and their elderly blind father. The cottagers
play an important role in the story because they unknowingly provide the creature with an
opportunity to learn to speak, an example of love, and a basic knowledge of human society. The
cottagers’ love for one another is ultimately what instills a desire for human companionship in
the creature. In the same way, their rejection of the creature is ultimately what drives him to
despair and murder, turning him into a monster. The cottagers are static characters because they
do not develop throughout the course of the story.
 The Creature – The creature has, up until this point, been wondering aimlessly through the
wilderness. After satisfying his physical needs of food and shelter at the cottagers’ home, the
creature discovers his more potent desire for love, compassion, and companionship. During
these chapters, readers also discover that under his atrocious physical appearance, the creature
is not inherently evil and actually has a kind and caring soul. It is the rejection of the cottagers
he grows to love that turns him into a monster, not an innate desire for evil. The creature is a
dynamic character because he develops over the course of the story.
 Safie – Safie is the mysterious stranger that arrives in chapter XIII. However, she plays a larger
role than simply the love interest of Felix DeLacey. Safie is the only strong female character in
Shelley’s novel. The character of Safie ties in some of Shelley’s feminist beliefs. Safie defies
her father and society in her radical thinking. She practices Christianity despite the fact that her
father is a devout muslim and she chooses to love Felix against her father’s wishes. She also
dreams of marrying a Christian man and becoming a high ranking woman in society. In Safie’s
day and age, this type of radical thinking was also revolutionary. It reflects back to Mary
Shelley’s personal beliefs and background. Safie is a static character because she does not
develop throughout the course of the story.
Important Notes
 At the beginning of Chapter XIII, the creature recounts the events to Victor Frankenstein that he
feels turned him into a fiend.
 Mary Shelley uses the arrival of the beautiful stranger to provide an opportunity for the creature
to learn the language of the cottagers. Her arrival also adds an air of mystery that intrigues the
reader.

 The creature calls the cottagers his protectors because their home provides shelter for his
physical body and their kindness toward one another protects his fragile emotional state.

 Through the study of human history, the creature observes the paradox that man can be both
noble and just and the epitome of evil simultaneously.

 The creature also notices through the study of human history that noble men were placed on a
pedestal while evil men were hated and outcast. Later he observes an inconsistency in the fact
Childers/Landers 3
that the noble are sometimes hated while the evil are loved.

 Through his study of human society the creature learns that man can, despite his inherent good,
choose to be evil. After being rejected by the DeLacey family, the creature chooses to wreak
havoc despite his guilty conscience.

 Mary Shelley illustrates her distrust of the court systems through the unjust trials of Justine and
Safie's father. Her distrust most likely stems from the French Reign of Terror (1793-1794)
during which British liberals lost all hope for justice and equality.

 Reasons why Safie is a feminist character:
1. She is strong willed and disobeys her father's orders.
2. She travels virtually alone, which is unacceptable at the time.
3. She chooses to love a man of whom her father disapproves.
4. She is ambitious to learn after she arrives at the DeLacey home.
5. She chooses to follow in her mother's footseps and believe in Christianity, even though her
father was Muslim.
6. She dreams of taking rank in society.

 In Chapter XIV, Shelley reveals how the DeLacey family came to live in poverty in Germany.
Their story embodies all that the creature has learned about human society. Also, their story
reveals the causes of the negative emotions that the creature could not, up until this moment,
understand.

 Safie's father is a scheming man who only cares about himself. He is a foil to Safie because she
cares about the DeLacey family and honors her commitment to Felix DeLacey. Her father is
also a foil to Victor Frankenstein's father because his father is benevolent and truly cared for his
children, while Safie's father is selfish and uses Safie for his own well being.

 While the creature benefits from the education he receives in these chapters, it also hurts his
emotional well being. This new-found knowledge allows him to fully recognize how utterly
alone he is in the world. He realizes the full extent of his isolation from the humans he so
desperately wishes would accept him.
Childers/Landers 4
Chapter XIII Paragraph
XVII
Important Quotations
“Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I
possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides,
endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not
even of the same nature as man.... when I looked around, I saw and
heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from
which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?
Chapter XIII Paragraph V
“Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of
sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed degree of
ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable.
Chapter XIII Paragraph II
“Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies
cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy
should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My
senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and
a thousand signs of beauty.
Chapter XIII Paragraph XV “These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was
man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so
vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil
principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that
can befall a sensitive being; to be base base and vicious, as many on
record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more
abject than that of the blind mole or harmless man.”
Chapter XIII Paragraph
XIX
“Of what a strange nature is knowledge is knowledge! It clings to the
mind, when it has once seized on it... I wished sometimes to shake off
all thought and feeling; but I learned that there was but one means to
overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death”
Chapter XIV Paragraph
VIII
“The prospect of marrying a Christian, and remaining in a country
where women were allowed to take a rank in society, was enchanting to
her.”